I recall eons ago Shaenon having some kind of semi-contest for a phrase or tag line or whatever to go on Narbonic daily pages and I flippantly said something along the lines of “I’ve eaten porcupine” (which I have, in a stew or soup or something ages ago in South Dakota).
Now, I’m thinking of finding porcupine Swedish Meatballs somewhere, hmm…..

I had to look up the reference. Now I know where “Collodi” comes from, at least.

That said, I didn’t remember the phrase ever coming up in the comic before. A bit of light archive digging shows that they’ve always called their website / blog that, and apparently I just didn’t notice.

That said, while I may be mistaken, I don’t believe any of the cast has ever actually TALKED about their website much, or really mentioned it by name before. Even assuming it’s come up in the past, I’m actually quite surprised that both Tip AND Shelby know/remember the blog’s name.

Unless I’ve missed something, we’ve never been given any indication that this blog is anything other than a crazy fringe site for conspiracy nuts, that no one’s ever heard of. It seems bizarre to think that both a member of Skin Horse and a member of AG-I would independently have familiarity with it, and reference it to each other with the expectation that the other person would be familiar with it.

Maybe the problem is I with me, and I haven’t read throug the archives recently enough, but this feels bizarre and totally out of left field.

Actually, it’s not. I’ll have to go back through the archives in order to locate the relevant cartoon but in the arc where she was discredited and kicked out of AG-1 Panoptica revealed to Jonah that she was one of his site’s biggest fans and actually tried to be reassuring him that his site was appreciated and worth continuing so it makes sense that she wouldn’t be the only one in the Shadow Government who felt that way. Apparently their site uncovers enough good stuff to have become the go-to site for Shadow Government people to find out what’s going on in the Illuminated world outside of their own conspiracies. ^_^

“Oh, you have a little news website? How cute! No one reads it, but I guess it’s good to have a hobby, right? Ya know, I think I’ll insult-pity you and subscribe, mostly so I can laugh at the content you put out and how absurd you are for even trying.”

Huh. “Collodi” has been going straight over my head – good catch. Truth be told, I rarely pay deep attention to the strips – but languages interest me, so the non-English phrase tripped my attention.A reference to the cricket’s role as (usually ignored) conscience, I presume.

They are immune to reality-blindness, they are some of the finest investigative reporters on the planet, they are . . . , still a couple of modern kids with their own website. I’m surprised that anyone is surprised at this.